Junkie: Oh how does one start this? How does anyone go about writing the end from the beginning. Right now, my mind is completely fixated on the impending end,not on what has happened to lead me to this point. But my last words will be all that remain with this lifeless corpse, so I owe it to this mess of a reality to give myself a narrative, something to outlive me, something to tell someone that I did exist and I did matter before they put me as another statistic. So here is my final blow-out, my first and only confession.
People will always deem the life of someone unfortunate enough to stumble into drugs as a nut-case, one of inferior values and finite intelligence, and in a way that’s all I want to say but I will continue, I have to continue.
I didn't enter this world in a blizzard of parental disputes and an intrinsic lack of confidence. In fact my parents were my fortress, my life revolved around making them content and more, they were my rock and kept my boat steady. I was also rather popular as a child, I was never in short supply of people to talk to and the world inside my head was not a mire of ire and repression but in fact rather optimistic, just like a child's mind should be.
However, not even this state of mind and not even my biological parents could have prevented this, no-one could of, it just happened, a snow ball of mistakes which seemed justified and right decisions which seemed unobtainable. During my days my mind just generated scenarios eternally, and those scenarios were scary and they got more and more frightening with each subsequent thought, and at one point, one definite and deliberate point I just stopped thinking and allowed something else think for me and I remember that time, well the first one, the most prominent in my mind, oh why must I remember?
I was just ten, just a chap who enjoyed airplanes and watching the films on the television during the day when a sudden pang of pain slit through my tooth like a bolt across the Arctic. My teeth chattered with apprehension as the man on the TV declared the news would be on next. I sat cradling my head, wishing the pain away but as these things generally go, it was futile and my mother made an appointment for the dentist in a couple of days, Mr.Dockstern his name was. A tall man with perfect teeth but a slur that sounded like he was perpetually drunk, he aggravated me with his harassing footsteps that still echo through my head intermittently to this day, to me and to most children at that age, he was a dentist and he was the devil.
Mr.Dockstern: “So young lad, what seems to be the bother?”
Junkie: I’m sure at that point his loose grip on his mouth allowed a trickle of flem big enough to distress my face to project flawlessly through the air landing on my cornea, I tried to whip it off but my Mother sat vacant and bored in the corner and she told me to respect elders, this was me respecting an elder.
Mrs. Cobble: “Well George, it seems he has quite an acute grief spread through the left side of his teeth. He complains of persistent and penetrating pain,” my mother confirmed.
Mr. Dockstern: “Oh, I see well, well, well. I’ll examine it and take action upon it. Right away if necessary, we don’t want our little man here missing school.”
Junkie: He was a patronising little cunt. I had the pain for two days and still went to school. But he sifted through my teeth like I was an exhibition, not once asking if I was comfortable or if I wanted him to fuck off. But those dentists, they do like to meddle, I just kept on respecting him. The flem was still trapped on my eyelid, I’m sure every time I blinked I could see the strain of it flexing impressively, he almost looked like he noticed too. He laughed a lot that appointment.
Mr.Dockstern: “Well it seems you have a serious crack here that allows the breeze to touch the nerves, it would be quite painful for a young man, I guess I’ll have to inject a filling. It should take no more than thirty minutes. If you want Mrs.Cobble you can wait outside whilst me and your little man get more acquainted?”
Mrs.Cobble: “That seems the best thing to do, take care Damien, be a good boy for the Dentist.”
Junkie: She left shutting the door silently behind her.
Mr.Dockstern: “Well my man, we will have to get to this filling right away, I must not lie it is a painful procedure in your condition but a necessary one. You will have to go under some laughing gas just to tame your nerves and the next thing you know, it’ll all be over. Does that sound okay?”
Junkie: Laughing gas? I had no idea what it was, I was an innocent young boy remember? I looked fearfully at the callous canister sat dormant on my weaker side in terms of eyesight, I still had flem glued to my eye. He turned around swiftly to get the mask and bought it around like a staggered cowboy, nearly doing a line dance in anticipation, I wondered is this how he gets to sleep at night?
Mr.Dockstern: “Ok, I’ll be delicate don’t you worry.”
Junkie: He needn’t tell me such a statement, his wretched eyes and broken skin told me he had no such thing as sensitivity or even basic empathy.
He placed it roughly on my face and forced my head forward.
Mr.Dockstern: “Ok, I’m going to turn it up now, tell me how it feels, if you don’t feel anything…tell me ok?
Junkie: “Ok.”
I sat shaking shivers, but soon that dissipated, oh Lord, how that dissipated! My mouth started to vibrate lightly and my brain seemed to rattle from side to side like a loony at a football match after his team just scored. I remember feeling almost euphoric and for a child of ten, that’s quite a feeling. But it wasn’t enough, the light buzz in my head wasn’t enough, my mind wasn’t drained enough.
“I don’t…really feel anything…”
Mr.Dockstern: “Oh, don’t you? Maybe the pipe is a bit blocked up, I’ll boost it up…”
Junkie: The euphoria wasn’t just euphoria, it wasn’t stagnant, it was an ever changing edifice of purity and complete decadence, every breath I took was like a multiplication of my feelings by infinity. My hands were shaking uncontrollably now and my eyes were darting from side to side, the flem caused mild hallucinations of water trickling delicately though a sea of listless ambition, one which was already achieved, I felt like nothing else mattered, apart from getting just a little more happier. I knew I couldn’t talk now, my lips were quivering too much, they were abstract from my face. I merely gesticulated with my hand to turn it up more.
Mr.Dockstern: “Oh my boy, your wish, your wish is my command.”
Junkie: I remember him uttering silently to his assistant about something, but it was like a beautifully built chorus sung by all the choirs in the world, soon I dazed in and out of consciousness, the buzzing kept on ringing indefinitely in my head, like that of a beehive, my mind was a hub of activity. Thoughts contended with other thoughts of which was better, which was more suitable to me, which would increase my enjoyment. It was as if I was constructing the perfect script with the calmness of a Siren guiding Sailors to their doom. His voice finally settled, those crescendos of choirs finally peaked and I was no longer high but meditating back to my body, before I knew what had happened, it was over and I remember that feeling, that pure untainted emotion, that one thought that had been battling through my mind from the darkest corners to the lightest of exits. It was that Television and aeroplanes just didn’t seem that interesting any more. Mr.Dockstern just sat there with a malignant easing smile on his face laughing and by God, I starting laughing too.
Hm, I tried to put up a new story but it just replaced my previous one, so the comments above relate to a previous story. Is it only possible to upload one story at a time?
Robert
Hi Juno,
I guess there are a lot of gaps in the piece which I perhaps rather hesitantly posted.
The original idea involved a man simply reading a diary which ended abruptly. The man who is tired of being left in the dark about so many of the people he had met/heard about all too briefly decides to finish the diary he had read and complete the story of the person he enjoyed the company of.
Therefore, he is of no relation to either of the characters. He picked it up from a second hand book shop (a very very loose plot device to tidy everything up at the end) where he deposits it back at the end of the story for someone else to read and wonder about this character.
The idea that the character may have been nothing but fiction to begin with is dropped in, but that reality was not a precursor for the man reading the diary to believe in and enjoy this young man. He's unsure himself how much stock he should place in a diary he simply found by chance, but that should be of little importance and perhaps another person will believe in this man and extend his life further.
I think you are right that clarity needs to be placed in the story and sometimes I do lack structure, so those are some good points I will focus on before posting another short story.
Thanks a lot for reading,
Robert
Hi Robert
This is a very interesting story, but I'd like to know when it's set and how the person reading the diary knows what Eliza was thinking.
The story as it stands throws up many questions and I think doesn't include the main action: what happened between Eliza and the young man and why they parted.
I like the idea that someone is prying into someone else's diary but feel a need to know how he got hold of it in the first place. And who is this person reading? What's their relationship to Eliza and the young man?
In short, I think you've only given us a small slice of the story and I'd like to know more.
Many thanks for sharing it.
Juno